From Dust we are born Chapter 1.
Disclaimer: I lack the ownership of RWBY. That goes to Rooster Teeth…one day, Smithers, one day…
Editor: Who the hell is Smithers…
LW: Of course you don't know that because… FAIRY GOD PARENTS! *jumps out window*
Editor: Someone really needs to get Wanderer to take their meds.
AN: Aright, this was a request by a Mr. What If, and since this idea seemed pretty neat, and I'm currently on writers block on my main fic, this will be a side one. Idea originally from a SleepinEyes.
Ironwood was in a foul mood. His projects where not going well.
Most of them just seemed to be dead ends. He knew the Knights were just a cheaper means of creating his army. The Paladins served as a nice frontal assault, but his real hopes lied in his biological department. More accurately, the Kind Staub [1], nicknamed the Atlas Egg.
This project would hopefully allow him to get the army he dreamed of. Not of tin copies, but of soldiers, the proudest battalion of hunters and huntresses every made.
The Atlas Egg, in theory, was simple in function. It would take a small amount of aura from each "parent" and mix the energies, fusing the small part of the souls into one, and then giving it form. However, most attempts of this had failed epicly. Hell, to say it tanked was an understatement. So Ironwood had it ordered to be moved to the main base to be handled by a larger crew of scientists.
He was shocked to hear a week later that grimm had attacked the convoy, taking out every signal one of the knights, and causing the Egg to go missing.
Ironwood groaned. He couldn't let the egg fall into enemy hands, and god forbid if the grimm had destroyed it. He couldn't afford to let his own men go out, no. Winter was busy dealing with the White Fang, and Penny was still a factor he was not willing to risk. Glaring at his scroll contacts, Ironwood swallowed his pride and pressed the call button.
"This is Professor Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Academy, how may I help you?"
"Yeah, It's…um, James…I have a favor to ask of you…"
"I…hate…t-t-t-the c-c-c-cold" Jaune chattered out as teams RWBY and JNPR marched in the snow covered mountains of Atlas. The team had been sent in by Ozpin, to obtain some sort of package for General Ironwood. Both teams jumped at the opportunity to get out on the field, but now the blonde leader was seriously regretting it.
Jaune, having never been to Atlas, didn't know to pack a heavy coat, let alone be prepared for such heavy snow. Hell, even Yang was in winter clothing, and was the most covered anyone had seen her. So Jaune had to ask for a coat from freaking general of Atlas. Yeah, great first impression of a being a good leader, forgetting to pack a coat to the coldest place in Remnant. On top of that, the coat he did get offered little protection from the elements, and was acted more for show than actual purpose, seeing as Ironwood grew up here his whole life. The man probably could bathe in ice and not notice a thing. However for Jaune, he was struggling to keep his skin from turning as blue as Neptune's hair.
"You okay?"
Jaune turned around to see Ruby, in a much heavier version of her usual wear, combat skirt and red hood still present with a red scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, looking at him with a sense of worry in eyes.
"Yeah," Jaune reassured her, not wanting to slow down the group. "I'm fine, just that time I complained about the dorm's AC giving out coming back to bite me in the butt with a vengeance."
Ruby looked at Jaune with a doubtful look. It was clear to her that Jaune was not "fine", far from it. The poor boy was shivering and looked as if he wanted nothing in the world than to curl up into a ball for warmth. Taking her scarf, she handed it to Jaune.
"Ruby…" He said, eyeing the scarf
"Take it. You need it more than I do. Besides, I have Weiss as a roommate. This is basically a light chill compared to what she likes to have the dorm set too."
"So that's why the AC broke!" Jaune said "Ice Queen overworked it"
"HEY!" Said Heiress commented from the back of the team.
"Wouldn't be the first time a Schnee overworked something" Blake muttered under her breath, followed by a "shot's fired" from Yang
"HEY!"
"Hey everyone, let's roast Weiss!" Yang hollered
"What? I will not stand for such petty insults-"Weiss stated, but was cut off as the most of teams JNPR and RWBY began to roast the pale girl.
Jaune and Ruby, however, found the two of them all by themselves as the roast fest of Ice Queen commenced in the background. The two stood there in awkward silence, the snow and wind howling on the mountain path. Jaune was however, taken by surprise when a red blur tackled him to the ground, the felt something constrict his thought. Finally getting a good look, he saw Ruby standing on top of him, trying to wrap her scarf around him, looking cute as she tried…
Wait Cute?
Jaune quickly dismissed this as hallucination due to the lack of oxygen. Ruby was like another sister to him…a really cute, adorkable sister that he just wanted to hug…
Oum. He needed air.
"Ruby…air…choking…" Jaune managed to choke out. Seeing her mistake, Ruby quickly loosened the scarf.
Regaining his breath, Jaune finally looked up to Ruby still sitting upon him, causing Jaune's face to turn as bright as the girl's cloak.
"You okay Jaune? Your face still seems a bit red…" Ruby said, placing her palm up against Jaune's head. The Arc quickly bolted up "YUP. I'mFineWhenIAmINot? 100%IsI OH Look cookies" Jaune quickly said, trying to avert Ruby's attention away from him as quickly as possible.
"COOKIES? WHERE?"
It was moments like these Jaune was glad she was a little naïve.
Ruby turned to Jaune, glaring at him in a way a child would after a being outsmarted by their parent. "Your mouth is a loaded gun, continually shooting lies. LIES I SAY!" Ruby exclaimed, waving her arms around vividly.
Jaune merely shrugged "What can I say? All the cool guns were taken."
Ruby merely punched the boy in the arm, causing him to yelp out in pain.
"OW! What was that for?"
Ruby put her hands on her hips "That, was because you now owe me cookies!"
"Fine, when we get back to Beacon I'll get you some damn c-"
However, the Arc never got to finish his sentence, as an insanely loud voice ripped across the mountain path.
"I'M QUEEN OF THE CASTLE!"
The entire mountain seemed to shake as testament to what could only be summed up as Nora.
"Your teammates sure are energetic, huh Jaune…Jaune?" Ruby looked to the Arc to see him having a look of horror on his face. This puzzled Ruby. Why did Jaune look so…shocked? "Oh come on Jaune, this is hardly the Noraest thing Nora's done."
Jaune finally looked to Ruby with a serious expression, fear in his eyes. "That's not what I'm worried about. We are in the middle of a snow covered mountain range and Nora just shook the entire mountain. Ruby, what happens when large amounts of snow is displaced from the top of a mountain?"
Ruby's eyes widened with realization "An avalanche…"
"WE NEED TO GET TO THE OTHERS AS FAST AS POSSIBLE!"
The two leaders bolted forward, or more accurately, Ruby did with Jaune hanging onto her for dear life. Within seconds, they made it to where the rest of their teams where, with a pissed off looking Weiss to boot.
"-And you all are the most horrible miscreants I ever had the displeasure of sharing a planet with, let alone life!" Weiss ranted out.
"You done?" Ruby asked calmly to her partner.
"…I think"
"Got it all out of your system?"
"Yeah…"
"THEN GET TO COVER! AVANCHLE! COMING! HURRY!"
All the teams quickly took action. Quickly Yang and Nora pounded a cave into the side of the mountain, Pyrrha using her polarity to shift aside some of the spare sediment that had enough iron in it to bend. The cave was quickly large enough to hold most of the two teams except one. But by then, it was too late. The wave of white was coursing its way through the mountain
Jaune knew what he had to do. "Guys, get in there."
Pyrrha looked at her partner like he was insane "Jaune, are you crazy? You'll be-"
"I'll think of something, just get it the cave!"
Pyrrha, with a heavy heart, followed her leader's orders, as foolish and suicidal as she thought they were.
Finally seeing his team and RWBY in the shelter, Jaune turned to face the avalanche. A solid, unforgiving wall of white, closing in on him. Well, if he ever made it out of this alive, he would never flirt with Weiss again, seeing as snow was officially a turn off. Jaune stood paralyzed in fear. This was it. This was how he died.
"Jaune!" Jaune was taken by surprise as a blur of red grabbed him, sending him flying downhill at speeds just barely above that of the avalanche. Flying in the air, Jaune was then caught by the familiar blade of Crescent Rose hooking his hood, keeping him with its user
"Ruby? What are you doing!?" He cried out
"Saving your life Vomit Boy!" The Red Cloaked girl hollered over the sound of the crashing snow. Jaune began to realize that they were approaching the bottom of the mountain…fast…too fast
"Jaune, brace yourself…this is gonna hurt…"
Jaune mentally groaned. He was at this rate going to be that one kid from the magic beacon bullhead. He should have stayed home today.
Well, at least he had Ruby…oh wait Ruby…this girl had literally just risked her life to save him. This cute… adorable…you know what? Screw it. He was gonna die anyway. Let it be by his own terms rather than scarier older sister Yang.
"Well Ruby I guess this is time to say if I don't make it out, I find you very cute!" Jaune hollered over the snow as they neared the bottom, mere seconds before impact.
"Wait what?" Ruby yelled, but was cut off as they hit the snow…hard.
Jaune quickly felt his world go white, then quickly turn black…maybe he should take a nap…yeah..
"Jaune!"
Jaune felt himself slowly feel life return to him, drowsy as all hell.
"But I don't wanna go to dance school mom…I wunna be a hunta" Jaune mumbled incoherently
"Jaune! Wake up!" Jaune bolted up as he felt his slap being slapped.
Hard.
Looking around, he saw a very ruffled up Ruby looking rather sheepish. "Sorry" She squeaked out, "But you where unconscious, and you wouldn't wake up, so I tried this thing my dad would do on my Uncle Qrow, and it worked, but that's not thecaseandintheendi'mgladyour_" Ruby quickly rambled out.
"Ruby, calm down, the only thing wrong with me other than this cold is this blasted crick in my back. Must have slept on a rock or something…" Jaune said, turning his back to face his resting spot, seeing a hint of gleaming gold and red in the snow. No…it couldn't… no way in hell was it so easy…
"Ruby…What does the package that we were meant to find look like?"
"Well, Ironwood described it as a large egg, about the size of a football, that was gold, white, black and red…Why?"
Jaune quickly shifted the snow, uncovering an object that fit the description word for word. "Because I think I just found it."
However, as soon as Jaune went to pick up the egg, he felt a pain from his hand, like it just got stuck on a high powered vacuum.
"OW Sonofabitch That hurt!" Jaune swore as he grasped his hand.
"Oh come on Jaune, quite being such a baby" Ruby said, as she too went to pick up the egg, but was met with the same result
"OWIE OWIE OWIE!" Ruby yelped "That thing is evil!" not
"I told you it hurt!" Jaune said, then tearing up a chunk of the coat Ironwood gave him. Maybe now the damn thing could be useful. Carefully wrapping up the egg in the torn fabric, Jaune finally picked it up.
Jaune looked up, only to see several layers of snow above them. "Guess we're stuck here for a while…"
Ruby experimentally poked ceiling with Crescent Rose, only to have a pile of snow fall down and hit her. "Yup…"
"Well, might as well try to sleep off some of the scrapes. That fall did drain our aura, so it wouldn't hurt to try and regain some of it."
Ruby nodded to this. After a few moments of attempting to fall asleep, Jaune found himself too cold to sleep. Ruby, noticing this, brought herself closer to Jaune, their bodies barely apart.
"Ruby, I…"Jaune started
"Your lips were turning blue and you where shivering yourself to death Vomit Boy. Besides, what kind of leader would I be if I let my fellow leader freeze himself to death?" Ruby stated simply. Pulling her cloak over the two of them, Jaune finally felt some warmth return to his bones, and finally slip into a peaceful sleep…
"Daddy…"
Jaune groaned as conscious slowly returned to him. Refusing to fully wake up, the Arc was perfectly comfortable where he was. He had some warm blanket, and a very cozy, snuggly pillow that he had in his arms.
"Daddy!"
Jaune felt something jab at his stomach, forcing him to finally get up. Opening his eyes, Jaune quickly remembered what happened. Atlas…Egg…Avalanche…Ruby…Wait…that pillow…
Jaune looked in front of him to see a sleeping Ruby curled up in his arms, snuggling up next to him for warmth. Yang was sooooo gonna kill him.
"Daddy!"
Finally looking for the around for the source of the voice, Jaune finally found it, coming from a lump in the cloak/blanket. Pulling it up, Jaune saw a little girl, no older than 6, with blonde hair with slight red streaks at the end, stark naked, who was shivering in the cold.
"Daddy…" She called out.
How did Jaune miss this? A girl frozen in the ice? He knew that he could be oblivious, but not to that level!
Wrapping up the rest of Ironwood's coat around her (fingers crossed the General did not have any attachment to that cloak) Jaune looked to the girl. "What's your name? Where are your parents?" He asked gently to the small child.
The child looked at Jaune with familiar silver eyes, and hugged Jaune tightly.
"Daddy…" She whispered, falling asleep.
No…nonononononononononononononononononononononononononono.
"Um…Ruby? Think you might want to come and see this…"
Omake: RWBY Civil War.
Jaune looked up at the new hunter administration act.
All Hunters and Huntresses must be registered by the government, and by such go under a strict background check.
Well…shit.
What where his options? If the government did any form of background check, they would see his faked records easily and have him out of here faster than Yang could make a pun. He needed to get the act taken down, but how? He was one guy, against an entire nation…
He needed more allies.
Jaune looked at Pyrrha with shock across the table.
"What do you mean this is a good idea!?"
The Spartan champion merely shrugged. "I'm just saying that we need to be put in check. How many innocent lives have we ruined in our wake?"
"Little compared to the ones we saved from the grimm and White Fang!" Jaune exclaimed.
Weiss spoke up from this. "I, for one, am in favor of the Act. We as hunters and huntresses need to have someone to answer to in case one of us goes rouge."
Ruby then looked at Weiss like she had just become a Grimm. "Are you insane? We're the good guys! We're hunters! Not some soldiers!"
"You tell em' sis!" Yang called out from the side, only to have Blake glare at her.
"Don't encourage her!" Blake hissed at the Blonde Brawler "We need to have someone restrict our actions, tell us when enough is enough!"
"Well I say we break whoever made this dumb act's legs!" Nora hollered out, only to be scolded by Ren.
"Nora, we might actually need to have a government tell us when it's okay to break someone's legs…"
Jaune looked over as soon the entire table was quickly consumed in an internal conflict that in true Beacon fashion, escalated to an over the top food fight between the two opposing views. Soon flying through the roof as usual, Jaune took time to think over the current events.
Did I just start some kind of civil war?
[1] This is German for child of dust, as Atlas appears to be of German relation. Proof, you may ask? Weiss Schnee is literally Snow White in German. That's worthy of a slow clap RT. Would this make Weiss's dad a NaSchnee?
I know. There's a special place in hell for me. I do golf with the devil and have a room right next to Cinder